3rd Issue (April, 2007)

Different Vehicles One Message

By Wong Weng Hon

A year before I pursued my post-graduate MA degree course in Buddhist Studies in the Post-graduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies of the Kelaniya University in Colombo, I was invited to deliver a few Dharma talks in Miri, East Malaysia. As preaching the Saddharma is my foremost agenda of my life, I accepted the inivitation without any hesitation. Before the Dharma talks commenced, I paid a curious visit to a genuine, magnificent Taoist Temple in Miri. To me, a genuine Tao temple is one in which the genuine tenet of Lao-tze is expounded. I met a sweet smiling female Taoist abbot who hails from mainland China. I posed a question to her after a brief light dialogue with her thus:

China’s economy is rapidly reformed and modernized.
Having emerged as a super-economic and political power,
would your county strike any other country in the world?

Without any hesitation, she responded spontaneously thus:

Almost all our modern well nurtured Chinese leaders have
acquired the knowledge of Tao, China therefore will not
strike and harm others. Harming others is harming oneself.

According to my own perception and speculation, China is philosophically wise enough not to be incorrigible. China has the tripartite Chinese philosophy constituted from the syncretism of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism. Taoism is an esoteric religion or philosophy, Confucianism is both exoteric and esoteric. Buddhism is also both exoteric and esoteric. All esoteric religions or philosophy, such as Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islamic Sufism, though they differ in expedient devices, methodology or pedagogy, the ultimate soteriological goal or destination is identical, that is, making a return journey to the Origin which is the ineffable Absolute or Essence. Before the Buddha’s demise, he admonished his disciples thus:

Regard yourself as an Island.
Take refuge in your own Island.

Your own Island is called the Buddha-nature – the Origin of all sentient beings. It is called Tao in Taoism; It is known as ‘Ming De’ in Great Learning of Confucian canon, Brahman in Upaniṣads or Hinduism, God or Holy Spirit of Christ in Christianity and Allah in Islam. One ought to take refuge in one own island which is the Essence or Absolute. That Essence or Absolute can not be named or designated. That can be conceptualized and designated, is not the ultimate Truth through which one actualizes final emancipation.

Tao Te Ching of Lao-tze expounds the ultimate Truth thus:

The Path that can be designated is not the permanent Path.
The name that can be named is not the permanent name.
The nameless is the beginning of the cosmos;
The named is mother of myriad things or beings.

The Buddhist Path or Tao is Buddha-nature or emptiness. Buddha-nature or emptiness is the ultimate or absolute Truth. If a Buddhist practitioner perceives the Buddha-nature or emptiness, he or she gains emancipation or salvation. As the ultimate truth of Buddha-nature or emptiness cannot be designated, it cannot be perceived by the ordinary worldlings. The worldlings merely perceive the illusive conditioned phenomena of the multiplicity of the empirical world. The conditioned phenomena are the contigent beings of the multiplicity or manifoldness of the world or cosmos. They are falsely designated through erroneous conceptualization or false imagination. Originally, all conditioned phenomena or contigent beings are nameless. This nameless situation is the origin of the universe or the world. When they are designated or named, all the phenomena or myriad things come into existence.

So it is so evident that the exposition of Tao Te Ching of Lao-tze does not differ from the exposition of the Theravada Tradition or the Mahayana tradition. Buddhism is expounded to distinguish between the knowledge of conventional truth and that of the ultimate truth. Nāgārjuna apologized the Word of Śākyamuni Buddha when he asserts thus:

Whoever perceives the distinction between the conventional
truth and the ultimate truth comprehends the profound
Message of the Buddha.

The teaching and learning of Buddhism support, reinforce and invigorate the pedagogy of Taoism and Confucianism. Therefore, China has reformed and modernized her thriving economy and strengthened her political might, the Chinese Buddhists will resurrect Buddhism when they are able to apply the perfection of wisdom or Tao in conventional activities. As the modern Chinese authorities are in favour of Taoism and Confucianism, the resurrection of Buddhism is only a natural movement of momentum. No one nor the Buddhas nor the Bodhisattvas can stop the mental purification of genuine practioners or the acquisition of Tao. Therefore, as long as the Chinese accept and practise Buddhism as a form of self-cultivation and self-rectification to harmonize the family, the society and to stabilize the nation or state, not only resurrection is certain and but also in fact its efflorescence is expected sooner than later. The Buddhist perfection of wisdom or Tao exists innately in everyone. No force in the world can destroy it as it is empty in essence. Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism are the invaluable treasures of China. They help the Chinese to harmonize between the conventional truth of illusive phenomena (shi) and the principle (li) of ultimate truth. The enormous economic GNP of modern China today is matchless with respect to power of the Buddhist perfection of Wisdom or Tao. The Chinese have long history of continuous civilization hitherto. The modern Chinese leaders are wise enough to arrange their priorities of national agendas for the welfare, wellbeing, stability, unity and prosperity of the vast population of China. The Chinese seem to learn well from their own past history and those of others. They are wise enough to capitalize on the mistakes, shortcomings and perversions of the current world and rectify themselves appropriately. The Buddhist perfection of wisdom is the unsurpassed expedient device to rectify any sentient being! The resurgence of interest in Buddhism in China is snow-balling. It will gather increasing momentum steadily as the economic affluence accelerates.

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